She Tastes Like Heartbreak
by thefanshipdarkhorse
Summary: Marceline and Bubblegum through the years, growing together, growing up and growing apart (not necessarily in that order).


**She Tastes Like Heartbreak**

 ** _thefanshipdarkhorse_**

* * *

The first inane thought that Marceline has upon meeting Princess Bonnibel Bubblegum is that this girl is going to break her heart. And then she realizes that's totally ridiculous. Marceline hasn't felt anything more significant than mild amusement toward anybody else since...well, since Ash. Still, Bonnibel smiles like peppermint and laughs like cotton candy and in that instant Marceline knows that there's not a man (or woman) alive that can ever own her heart, not all of it. Marceline knows all of this—can see it as clear as the daylight that burns her skin—and yet, she approaches her.

And this is all before they've spoken for the first time.

(When they do speak, it's second nature for Marceline to pick up on all of Bonnibel's silly little hang ups and tease her and prod at her buttons until the polite, refined princess snaps—as natural as drinking the red from bow ties.)

* * *

They grow close naturally, as if everything in the world wasn't setting them up to hate each other. Where Bonnibel's goodie-goodie, Marceline acts as though rules exist only to be skirted. Where Bonnibel is kind and fair, Marceline is sarcastic and indifferent.

But they don't hate each other. All the things that could have led to hate, all of the personality quirks and flaws, in spite of all the odds, drew the two together rather than pitted them as rivals.

(Maybe it's because really, deep down, Bonnibel isn't such a goodie-goodie after all. She likes to follow the rules, likes to play above it all, but over time Marceline grows to know the girl a little better than that. Bonnibel isn't just sweet and kind and ever-loving—she's also selfish, entitled, and just a little bit immature. Or maybe it's because Marceline isn't quite the devil-may-care badass she affects to be. She can troll and tease with the best of them, but the only time she ever came anywhere close to hurting Bonnibel, she very nearly fell apart.

But nobody knows any of this except them, so their closeness seems odd to those around them, to say the least. But they don't care. Well, Marceline doesn't.

Secretly, she thinks Bonnibel might. But she tells herself it doesn't matter.

And it doesn't.)

* * *

It begins like it ends—quickly, and without pretense (or maybe that's just Marceline's mind, blurring the memories together like spun cotton candy). She starts it, of course.

She kisses Bonnibel one night, thinking it would be a great way to annoy Ooo's favorite pink princess.

(She was also a little curious as to what pink tastes like. It is, after all, a shade of red.)

She expects Bonnibel to shriek in indignant embarrassment, to huff and puff about Marceline's stupid jokes—hell, she was even prepared to be on the receiving end of some royal fisticuffs.

She doesn't expect Bonnibel to kiss back.

It turned out, she would come to realize later, that there was quite a lot she never expected Bonnibel to do.

She never expected Bonnibel to best her in an heirloom axe-guitar battle, or to be able to beat her in an arm wrestling contest. She never expected Bonnibel to initiate a heated make-out session turned more on that one night when the wind was blowing, or for the princess to somehow worm her way into the deepest crevices of Marceline's cold heart (though she'd probably been there for a while).

She never expected Bonnibel to break her heart, either.

But eventually she did that, too.

* * *

Finn is…different.

He's a welcome surprise, though Marceline has no clue where he could possibly have come from, since she personally watched as the last human alive shriveled into an insane, bitter shell of a man obsessed with finding his 'princess'. Finn is energetic and cheerful and everything seems to be an adventure for him.

Finn falls in love with Bonnibel (like everybody else) and, in time, falls out of love just as easily (like almost everybody else). And Marceline's a little bit jealous (just a little bit). Not of Finn's affections, or of his closeness with Bubblegum, because Finn's…well, he's _Finn_ , and he never really stood a chance—never really understood the difference between a childish crush and love. No, Marceline is jealous of his ability to fall out of love with Bonnibel, like it was the most natural thing in the world.

She wishes she knew how.

(She never does learn.)

* * *

It's been more than a decade since they met.

More than a decade, though neither girl appears to have aged a day.

All of their growing has been in their interactions, in their relationship with the other and in their relationships with those around them.

Marceline is kinder, now—she's learned that for all the things that matter in the world, she just can't find the time to care what people may think of a vampire queen who is kind rather than evil.

As for Bonnibel…she seems to be fighting a losing battle, something that even the dimmest of Candy Kingdom citizens are beginning to pick up on. Nobody knows exactly who or what it is that she's fighting, but she seems to grow more tired, less patient with every passing day.

Ironically, with these changes, Bonnibel is more of a ruler now more than she ever was before, and sometimes Marceline looks at her (always from a distance, now) and remembers.

She remembers teasing Bonnibel, and being rewarded with luminescent blushes.

She remembers taking Bonnibel by the hand and stealing her away from the castle for a day of pointless adventure.

She remembers kissing Bonnibel, just because she was curious (or that's what she's always tells herself).

And she remembers the taste of pink on her lips for the first time.

* * *

Pink tastes a little…odd, for lack of a better word.

Pink tastes sweet (that, at least, she had expected). Sickly sweet, like some medicine Simon had found for Marceline when she'd been horribly sick as a child. But it also has a slightly bitter aftertaste that just kind of…hangs around, long after the fact. It tastes a little bit watered down, though really, she should have been expecting as much; pink is only a dilute version of red, after all.

She can't really describe the flavor in its entirety. There are too many different things happening all at once, and there's no one word for it that she's found up to this point.

But every time she tastes it—every time, without fail—her heart cracks, just a little bit more.

(One of these days it's just going to shatter, but that's okay. Marceline doesn't need her heart to beat. A heart is just an accessory organ for her—has been for nearly a century now.)

Still, she can never _quite_ forget the taste of pink on her tongue.

And maybe, such an unconventional taste deserves an unconventional title. Or maybe she's just hedging, looking for answers—though if she was, this certainly wouldn't be the one she wanted.

But pink, she finds, oddly enough, tastes just like heartbreak. A little bit bitter, a little bit sweet, and a whole lot like nothing else in this world.

* * *

 **I wrote this forever ago, and only just rediscovered it in my writing folder as I was going through it for story ideas. I touched it up a bit and filled in the empty spaces—hopefully it flows well despite that xP—and decided to publish. It's just a oneshot, nothing special. But I'd really appreciate any reviews!**


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